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During the release of its 2025 annual results, Airbus has blamed engine maker Pratt & Whitney for its inability to reach a rate of 75 A320 deliveries per month. The comments were made as the European aerospace giant announced a revenue of €73.4 billion ($86.6 billion), up 6% year on year, and deliveries of 793 aircraft throughout 2025.
Airbus has been showing steady increases in its monthly rate of A320 family deliveries. The firm hopes to reach a rate of 75 A320s a month. However, due to “Pratt & Whitney’s failure to commit to the number of engines ordered by Airbus”, the manufacturer now says that it won’t reach this rate until 2027.
Airbus Calls Out Pratt & Whitney
Airbus dedicated 132 words of its annual press release to talking about aircraft delivery rates. Of that, 57 were about the Airbus A320 family, compared to just 22 about the entire widebody family of A330s and A350s. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury directly targeted Pratt & Whitney as holding it back from reaching its desired output rates on the A320 program. Calling out P&W by name and using the phrase “failure to commit” is notably strong language for a results release.
While Airbus namechecked Spirit Aerosystems while talking about the A220 rate, it used much calmer language, saying, “The A220 production ramp-up is ongoing and still paced by the integration of Spirit AeroSystems work packages and the balance between supply and demand.” Simple Flying has contacted representatives of Pratt & Whitney for comment. The full quote from Airbus regarding Pratt & Whitney and the A320 family is as follows:
“On the A320 Family, Pratt & Whitney’s failure to commit to the number of engines ordered by Airbus is negatively impacting this year’s guidance and the ramp-up trajectory. As a consequence, the Company now expects to reach a rate of between 70 and 75 aircraft a month by the end of 2027, stabilising at rate 75 thereafter.”
2025 Was A Landmark Year
Speaking about his company’s performance in the preceding year, Guillaume Faury called 2025 a “landmark year”. Airbus posted a 6% increase in revenue and an adjusted earnings before tax and interest (EBIT) of €7.13 billion ($8.41 billion). This is an impressive increase of 33% year on year. Expanding on the numbers, Faury remarked that:
“Global demand for commercial aircraft underpins our ongoing production ramp-up, which we are managing while facing significant Pratt & Whitney engine shortages. The broad and competitive portfolios of Defence and Space as well as Helicopters allow us to capture the momentum in defence. We are also making progress to establish a new global industrial space player, together with our partners.”
Elsewhere, the European aircraft manufacturer has grown its workforce by a factor of 5%, with its total number of employees rising from 156,921 on December 31, 2024 to a grand total of 165, 294 on December 31, 2025. Likewise, its net cash position grew by a similar factor, rising at a year-on-year rate of 4% from €11.753 billion ($13.866 billion) to €12.171 billion ($14.359 billion).
How Safran’s Newest $330M Investment Will Solve Airbus A320 Supply Chain Hurdles
The manufacturer supplies key components to the A320 program.
Four-Figure Gross Orders
Among the other stand-out figures in Airbus’s full-year results was its gross commercial aircraft order total, which hit the four-figure mark at a satisfyingly round 1,000 planes. This represented a 13.9% increased compared to 2024’s figure of 878 gross orders for commercial aircraft. However, the company also had to face a greater number of cancellations on this front, with over 100 orders being lost in 2025.
Indeed, with 111 cancellations, its net figure for commercial aircraft came to 889 planes. While this was still higher than 2024’s net total of 826 jets, the margin of year-on-year growth was considerably lower than when it came to gross orders, at around 7.6%. In any case, Airbus’s performance in 2025 left it well-placed for another busy year, with its current commercial aircraft backlog standing at 8,754 jets.
